NAFTA, shmafta: The softwood deal is done

Opponents of NAFTA can rejoice at the new Canada-US softwood lumber deal.

The agreement allows the US to keep about one billion dollars, or 22 per cent of its ill-gotten gains from anti-dumping duties discredited by multiple NAFTA arbitrations and appeals and a slew of WTO rulings (Read the summary in an AFP aricle).

BC Premier Gordon Campbell and other provincial leaders grudgingly endorse the federal deal as an improvement on the status quo of endless litigation and ongoing international ill-will. Meanwhile, the logging businesses across the country that will see only partial redress to their stolen funds and a ceiling placed on their market penetration in the US are crying foul.

The arcane financial world of dumping quotas and stumpage fees can do without my ignorant opinion as to whether the deal is fair or not. Still, the new agreement seems to prove a larger point that will give some comfort to those conspiratorial-minded Canadian nationalists that saw NAFTA as a big sellout to the US of our national resources (The basic idea is that NAFTA prevents us from conserving water, energy or any other commodity even to maintain our own lifestyle so long as we are obligated to share those resources at international market prices with our mega-consuming neighbor to the south).

By negotiating international trade agreements that ignore NAFTA, we've set a precedent: NAFTA is irrelevant when either nation feels it is not in their interest to abide by it.

If we ever feel like turning off the taps to the US, we can do so. If they attempt to retaliate, we can go to court. Even if they win the case, we will appeal. And appeal. And appeal again.

And if we are finally guilted into accepting some sort of agreement to restore the flow of nature's bounty southward, we will do so on our terms.

That's the American way. We could do worse than copy their tactics. NAFTA, shamfta.

tags: NAFTA, softwood, lumber, US, Canada, BC, nationalist, WTO, resources